Tim FerrissMaster Mentalist Derren Brown on Magic, Mind Reading, and More
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 18,996 words- 0:00 – 1:09
Preview
- DBDerren Brown
And she was sort of furious and, um She had her head stuck to the table. It's understandable. With her head stuck to the table. And I couldn't, it was a very odd situation, which hasn't ever happened in 20 years. There were lots of sort of things arose like this where I'm trying to kind of, because you know, your natural instinct is to then sort of, you kind of, you find rapport with the person and you bring them to where you want them to be. It's kind of straightforward stuff. But she was absolutely not having any of it. Didn't want me to help her, was angry. And in the end I had to say, because it was time to carry on with the show, "Look, I've got to go, I've got to go carry on with the show." And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, you, you, you do that, you." And I, "Great, well you, I'll see you afterwards." "Yeah, yeah." And it, it got slightly, slightly argumentative. And then I went back to do the rest of the half of the show, doing this show knowing there's a woman with her head stuck to the table upstairs thinking, "Why did I get slightly chippy with her?"
- 1:09 – 7:13
Sacrifice, The Push, and Apocalypse.
- TFTim Ferriss
I'm looking at your website right now, derrenbrown.co.uk for people who would like to check it out. And I'm just going to mention two quotes which are in the Now Streaming on Netflix section here.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And the first is under Sacrifice, and the quote is, "Sacrifice is an utterly bizarre, ethically questionable, totally gripping must-see." That's from Paste. And then under The Push, the quote is, "The most nightmarish and provocative piece of pop culture in TV history," and that's from the New Zealand Herald. Could you please explain, just in brief, these two specials and the, the premise of each?
- DBDerren Brown
I started off doing sort of mind reading TV shows back in 2000. And then as I sort of, I guess I kind of in the world of being a magician, mind reader, sort of mentalist. And then over the years they kind of, as I grew up I guess, I wanted to do something that I found more interesting with it. The shows became largely about people being put unwittingly through these kind of social experiments in a slightly kind of Truman Show kind of way, generally to come to a better place in themselves, or generally there was a good, a good reason for them. Yeah, you do kind of have license in a way that you couldn't in a clinical setting to stage things that are quite sort of dark. So in the two you mentioned there, so Sacrifice was the last one I did, and the idea was to see whether a guy who was very anti-immigration and big Trump supporter at the time that was all sort of kicking off, and probably to a lot of people's ears had kind of fairly racist views, whether he could be brought to a point where he would lay down his life for an illegal, uh, undocumented Mexican immigrant. So the whole show, and this is a sort of, a kind of a format that I've used in different ways, is about layering in. Sometimes they don't have, they don't know they're part of a TV show at all. He thought he was part of a documentary. He thought we'd implanted a microchip in the back of his neck and were following, [laughs] I've thought about this for a long time, following his sort of progress with that. Was actually, that microchip thing was a big placebo, and it was a, a way of kind of getting a, not a hypnotic response from him, but a kind of allowing suggestion to work well with him and getting him to the point where I could layer in these triggers and then set them off at a moment that we staged using lots of actors that you didn't realize were actors, whereby he would be given this sort of moral, moral choice, and would he do it? Would he lay down his life?
- TFTim Ferriss
And lay down his life meaning-
- DBDerren Brown
Jump in front of a gun
- TFTim Ferriss
... take a bullet.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah, take a bullet. Take a bullet. So that's Sacrifice. And then The Push, it was another kind of life and death thing. It was to see whether, could, could you make... [laughs] Saying these out loud, I realize how ludicrous they are. Uh, could you make somebody push someone off a building and kill them purely through social compliance? So it was a show about compliance.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-huh.
- DBDerren Brown
So again, you've got someone going through it that doesn't realize they're part of a TV show at all. This is completely hidden in terms of the filming, and a whole load of actors, and this really anxiety-ridden, hilarious kind of evening that they go through when they're a guest at what they think is a big high-stakes auction party. And one of the guests, I won't spoil the story in case any- anybody sees it.
- TFTim Ferriss
I recommend people watch it. I've seen it.
- DBDerren Brown
Thank you.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
These things have always interested me, and generally it's been about, as I said, kind of taking someone that by all reports ne- needs to kind of step it up a little bit somewhere in their life and getting them to that point. The biggest one I did was called Apocalypse, and it involved ending the world. A, a lot of these ideas come from frustrated writing sessions when we're going around in circles, and then one of us goes, "Ah, can't we just..." And Apocalypse was, "Can't we just end the world, and then somebody wakes up and it's all zombies, and they've got to find their way home?" And, and so we, you know, so we did that. And part of the process of making the show is trying to stick to these original ideas and stick to the scale. So we had a meteor strike. We had to convince this guy that it was a meteor was gonna land, and so we hacked into his news feeds, his television, his family were in on it. His h- house is full of hidden cameras. Doesn't know we're filming in his house for months.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's like The Game with Michael Douglas.
- DBDerren Brown
Exactly. Exactly. No, that's a big, uh, reference point for us. It's exactly that. So yeah, that's been fun. I, it's been a few years since I've done TV 'cause I was out in, I do stage shows as well every year, and I was out in, doing a show on Broadway, and then there was COVID, and then I had a lot of theater projects going on. So I've taken a bit of a rest. So if I come back, it'll be something different, I think. But yeah, those are, that's the general picture.
- TFTim Ferriss
You're good at different. And just to add a little bit of Additional connective tissue for The Push. Now, I have not seen The Push in a long time, but am I right that you make reference to, and I'm probably getting the pronunciation wrong here, but Sirhan Sirhan at the beginning of that? Am I inventing that or is that a proper memory?
- DBDerren Brown
No, that's a different show.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay.
- DBDerren Brown
That's a different show, which was another assassination as to whether you could take... So Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Bobby Kennedy, it was to see whether his claim, how he was set up by the CIA, could actually work, whether you could do those things and set up those triggers. So we just followed basically his story and did it with somebody who had them, had them assassinate, uh, Stephen Fry, again, who was in on it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Stephen Fry, just for those-- We won't get into his bio, but The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy audiobook, if you want to get a real taste-
- DBDerren Brown
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
... the brilliance of Stephen Fry, at least as an, as a voice actor, highly, highly recommend.
- DBDerren Brown
He's a great man.
- TFTim Ferriss
Amazing. We'll come back to some of the ethical questions around these social experiments. We're gonna-
- DBDerren Brown
There are none. There are no ethical questions. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
There are none. There are none.
- 7:13 – 9:45
Derren’s transition from student to magician.
- TFTim Ferriss
We will come back to that, but I wanted to rewind. So you mentioned, I guess, around 2000 or so, if I'm getting the chronology right, I believe this is referring to mind control. Is that the right-
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... peg?
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
How did that happen? And is it fair to say that that was the first kind of catalyzing event that set the stage for a lot of what came later? I'm wondering what ingredients went into that happening, whether serendipitous, engineered, or otherwise.
- DBDerren Brown
So I studied law and German in Bristol in England, and I lived there for many years afterwards. And I'd seen a hypnotist in my first year at university and, and just was so besotted with it that I learnt how to do that. And by the time I graduated, I was the hypnotist guy at university, and I also started doing close-up magic as well. And then I sort of, kind of made a living doing those things. And after sort of mid-'90s, I wrote a book for magicians, and then that got me-- Which is a kind of a whole, there's a whole niche world of publishing there. And then I got known to that community. So when a TV company here who were, I guess, were looking for a British answer to Blaine, David Blaine-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... whose sort of shows were particularly hot and new at the time, they spent a couple of years looking for somebody that could do mind reading because there really wasn't very much of it around. And that had become my thing. So I got a phone call, and I went to London and met the, the two guys that ran the production company. One of whom has since become my manager, and the other one is now my sort of-- Well, we're all kind of co-producers in our own company. And I showed them a few things, and they really liked it, and we put together this first show. It was a one-hour special, yeah, in 2000. And the r- I think it was the repeat of the show actually did well, so the Channel four in the UK commissioned another one, and then it just sort of built from there. And then there's been a couple of things I did. Three years into it, I did this Russian roulette on TV, like a live thing, and that got a lot of publicity. So it just kind of kept going, and, and then along the way, as I've sort of grown up, I've kind of tried to take it in new directions. But essentially, it was a mixture of a lot of background work. I was just doing it a lot. I just loved it. I just loved sort of spending my days dreaming up tricks and going out and performing in the, in the evening. As I said, writing the book and just getting known to that, to that world and then being offered the show.
- 9:45 – 11:49
How Martin Taylor inspired Derren to pursue hypnosis.
- TFTim Ferriss
What was it that grabbed you in the beginning? I don't know if it was Martin Taylor originally or, or someone else. But number one, why did you even see hypnotism on campus or while you were at university? And then secondly, what about it attracted your attention enough? You're a smart guy. You could do a lot of things. You, you already do a lot of things. What was it that pulled you in after or during that performance?
- DBDerren Brown
So Martin Taylor was the hypnotist that I saw, and I think it's probably-- I don't know what it's like in the States, but it's a fairly popular student staple for, in terms of entertainment. And it was a really good show. I, I think they, you know, sometimes they can be spoiled by people ma- being made to look like idiots, and this wasn't, wasn't like that. It was really, it was really fascinating, and it was in my first week. And I, I was a g- great kind of attention seeker and just quite insecure, and I didn't realize it consciously, but I think the idea of hypnotizing people, particularly-- I mean, often the sort of people that respond to hypnosis well are the kind of very extrovert kind of jock types. And suddenly, you've kind of got control over that, you know, which is the exactly the people that would have intimidated me so much and had done, like, through school. And I think something in that just made it so appealing. And I walked back, I was walking back with a friend of mine from that show, and I said, "I'm, I'm gonna learn. This is what I'm gonna do." And he's-- "I'm gonna learn how to do this and do it." And I remember he said, "Oh, yeah, me too." And I, I knew that he didn't mean it in the same way I did. And it was a very, it was a real thing just to-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] You mean he was going to be more of a tourist, and you were like, "No, no, no, I'm going to medical school for hypnotism." [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah. It was a real-- It really clicked into place. And of course, that was, you know, there were no YouTube videos or anything, so I was-- I bought and stole books and anything I could find. And I kind of learnt it the long way around. I think if you-- There are probably shortcuts to learning hypnosis, but it helps you to learn it the long way around because you're gonna run into strange situations with it sometimes, which happens and still does.
- 11:49 – 15:30
Strange audience reactions to hypnosis.
- TFTim Ferriss
What do you mean by strange situations? [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
Well, actually, so stage shows that I do don't really have much overt hypnosis in. I'm using suggestion and subtle stuff with the audience all the time. So I've toured every year for 20 years or so, apart from, apart from COVID. And this is a strange feature, I think, of the last, the last show I did, Showman, which is on, will be on Channel 4. So this is post-COVID, and maybe it's also the first show that the kind of younger or that kind of Gen Z world was sort of-- There's sort of an age limit, a bottom age limit on the shows. So it was the first time it sort of really started to be sort of populated maybe as well by that sort of generation. I don't know. But there was, there was a little bit of hypnosis in, in the show, and it was serving a-- I don't really sort of do hypnosis overtly, but it was to serve a, a bigger end. For the first time, I had these really odd, odd reactions, much, much stronger than before. I mean, I'm used to sort of sometimes having to go out and speak to someone in the interval or after the show. There was a woman who-- I got a message in the interval that this, that there was a woman with her head stuck to the table in the bar in the theater, which sounded odd 'cause it's not like nothing that I'd said or done to the audience would've, I could think would've made that happen. But nonetheless, people sometimes get highly suggestible people maybe. It sort of, she, maybe she'd picked something up. Anyway, so I went out and spoke to her. Because she looked drunk, she'd sort of largely been ignored, and the rest of the audience had sort of found their way back into the theater by this point, so I could, I could go up and talk to her on her own. And she was sort of furious and, um-
- TFTim Ferriss
She had her heads, head stuck to the table. That's understandable.
- DBDerren Brown
With her head stuck to the table.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
And I couldn't-- It was a, a very odd situation, which hasn't ever happened in twenty years. Now, lots of sort of things arose like this where I'm trying to kind of-- Because, you know, your natural instinct, uh, is to then sort of y-you kind of, uh, you, you find rapport with the person, and you bring them to where you want them to be. It's kind of straightforward stuff. But she was absolutely not having any of it. Didn't want me to help her, was angry. And in the end, I had to say, 'cause it was time to carry on with the show, I, "Look, I've gotta go. I've gotta go carry on with the show." And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, you, you, you do that. You..." And I, "Great. Well, you, I'll see you afterwards." "Yeah, yeah, I'll s-" And it, it got slight, [laughs] slightly argumentative. And then I went back to do the rest of the half of the show, doing this show knowing there's a woman with her head stuck to the table upstairs thinking, "Why did I get slightly chippy with her?" You know, she was fine at the end. But it's this, it was an odd thing in the air that-- And I think a lot, a lot of the strange reactions that, and this only, it's taken me twenty years to learn this, that when people do act oddly or seem to get, in quotes, caught, you know, stuck in hypnosis or... It's generally people having panic attacks, that they've, they've sort of-- Hypnotist has said, "Okay, open your eyes," to a big audience of people, and you haven't been able to open your eyes in the moment. And then you get into a, a kind of a recurring-
- TFTim Ferriss
A spiral.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah, exactly. And once I started saying, "Don't do this if you are prone to panic attacks. Just sit this bit out or go outside of the auditorium for a bit," it stopped. But it's a really inter-- Have you had much to do with it? Have you, have you-- Y-you must have skirted around hypnosis a lot even if you haven't done it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I have. I've had at least one or two people on the show who have practiced hypnosis. I had a clinical hypnotist from Stanford on the show as well, and have a deep interest but very little personal experience.
- 15:30 – 20:30
Hypnosis, mentalism, and cold reading.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Would you mind defining mentalism, cold reading, and then describing how you made the hop, if it is a hop, from hypnosis to those things or how you incorporated them? But what are they?
- DBDerren Brown
Hypnosis I think is very difficult to define. There are definitions of it, of course, but in terms of what's actually happening and what's going on has always been-- So there are some people that have always said it's a special, a special state, and there are others that say, no, it's just, it's really just sort of behavior being motivated in a, in a particular way. So for example, you know, you see somebody on stage being given an onion to eat, and you'd-- They're told, "It's the, it's a delicious apple," and you see them eating an onion and, and it seems like, well, they must be in some special state to be able to comfortably eat an onion and not find it disgusting. And I was talking about this with my sort of co-creator one year 'cause we were talking about doing these sorts of things as part of the show. And he said, "I bet you can just eat an onion anyway." And he went to my fridge, took out an onion, took out a big bite of it, and he said, "Yeah, look, that's fine. I can eat the onion. It's fine." 'Cause his motivation was such that he was wanting to prove a point, and then lo and behold, it's actually all right if you're motivated in the right way. Whereas if you're eating an onion going, "Oh, this is disgusting," then it's, it's gonna be very different. So I veer more towards that sort of it's just something in motivation and behavior rather than a special state. But there are things that we've done like putting people in a, in an ice bath under hypnosis, having them not feel the pain that you'd find-- Well, they're not just faking it 'cause you couldn't just, couldn't just fake that. It's not the same as that. There's some, there's something else, some sort of middle ground going on. So yeah, that's a tricky one, but also a, a great source of fascination for me. Mentalism is... Well, it's a sort of type of performance that it's always has been a little niche. And I suppose you could think of a lot of a magician that is obviously a magician doing a trick with a sort of mind reading theme as, as m- that, that's kind of mentalism. If somebody makes that their living, then they're a mentalist. But also you could probably think of a stage medium or a psychic as also being a sort of mentalist. So it kind of covers the performing world of psychological or supernaturally kind of just that world as opposed to the more obvious fodder of conjuring card tricks and sawing people in half and so on. It sort of had its heyday, I think, back in the really the turn of the twentieth century, and a lot of the things I've drawn on really have come from that. It's more popular Nowadays, in the same way that when Blaine was very popular, a lot of magicians... Oh, well, Copperfield, David Copperfield brought in a wave of magicians doing that style of magic, and Blaine did a similar thing with that style of magic. I think I'm probably responsible for the wave of mentalism. There's more of that around now than, than there was before, and it's sort of gonna be defined by whatever people choose to do that I guess that call themselves mentalists. Because, because my, I started in hypnosis, my skill base is a mix of sometimes it's real stuff that looks like tricks, and sometimes it's tricks that looks like real stuff, and it's suggestion, and it's magician's techniques as well. So it's kind of a, it's kind of a mix of all of those things. And then cold reading, which is the other one you mentioned, is, well, distinguished from hot reading. It's, it's the techniques used by generally fake psychics, but also the sort of thing you'd read in astrology columns, in magazines, and so on, where you make it sound like you have some clever insight into somebody, and you're saying things that sound very specific to that person, but actually are things you're just throwing out, and you know that the person will pick up on the stuff that hits and, you know, matches their experience, will sort of ignore all the other stuff that doesn't. And there are any number of clever ways that people in that world use to make it seem like it really sounds like they've said something more specific than they have. So if you go and see a, a medium on stage, classically, you know, they'll say, "I'm getting a, I'm getting a name, Jean," you know, and then you've got hands will go up. Now, that could be, it could be that somebody in the audience is called Jean. It could be, "Well, my sister died, and she was called Jean," or it could be, "I know a Jean." Well, this, you know, it, so that could be anything. But as soon as someone says, "Oh, I know a Jean. Oh, well, this is, this is for them." "Wow, how did you know I had a friend called Jean?" Well, he, he didn't. You provided that information, and so on. So yeah, you, you're generally saying stuff, um, when it's a conversation like that, and people provide you some little thing back, which you then take credit for, and you, this sort of conversation winds its way along. And if you're not skeptical, it can seem convincing
- 20:30 – 22:23
How a TV medium uses hot reading techniques.
- DBDerren Brown
on a good day. Hot reading is when you're using information that you've gleaned from a person, so very specific information that you're just feeding straight back. Well, a friend of mine was at a recording of a very famous TV medium in the States a good few years back, and it was when this sort of thing was starting to become popular. It was, I think, probably the first big name, um, doing that sort of thing. And he had a stud- studio audience set up, and this friend of mine was sat in the audience, skeptical like, like I would be, but just there out of curiosity. So the guy comes out before they start filming-
- TFTim Ferriss
This is the TV personality who's the medium?
- DBDerren Brown
This is the medium. This is the-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- DBDerren Brown
... yeah, medium. Comes out to talk to the audience before they start filming and says... Obviously, the audience is full of believers, apart from people like my friend, and says, "Is there anybody who you would, anybody here hoping that someone's gonna come through for them?" So lots of hands go up. And he just goes around and talks to people and says, "Who have you lost?" "Oh, I've lost, I lost a son." "Okay, um, and what happened?" "Well, this happened. He drowned." "And okay, can you tell me his name? Do you remember what he was wearing on the day? Just so that if he comes through, I'll know that it's him." So he gets all this information, and then the cameras start rolling, and he just goes out and feeds that straight back to the people. "I'm getting a, this is a guy, and he, this is a young boy. He was seven. He drowned. He's wearing a red sweater. Does anybody take this?" And of course, the woman in the audience is in tears and, you know, because she... [chuckles] So often with this thing, the, the reason why people don't wanna believe it's fake is that the lie is so ugly that anybody would actually do that just to make some, just to make themselves look good and, you know, that it's easier to believe it mu- must be real, or at least maybe they believe it themselves, or they're trying to do good or that... Gosh, it's just so often just kind of ugly. So that's, that's hot reading, whereas cold reading is the, um, you have no information, but you're good at making it sound like you do.
- 22:23 – 29:39
How can someone learn to be a healthy skeptic?
- DBDerren Brown
Those are my definitions.
- TFTim Ferriss
If you were to do an online course training people to be more skeptical, how might you think about that? Would you have assigned reading of any type? Would you have them watch certain things? This is, I've seen more and more, I think, in, like, a foreboding, burgeoning nihilism with a lot of worries around climate change and so on. People want something to grab onto. The sort of Judeo-Christian religions in many places have faded away, no longer have the hold that they did, therefore not offering the guidance they once perhaps did.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And so at least in Austin, my pet theory is that people are looking for some sense of wonder at work and possibility, and then they start grasping onto QAnon. They start grasping onto whatever the latest and greatest kind of magical thinking might be.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
How might you train someone in the opposite direction?
- DBDerren Brown
Well, first of all, I mean, that's a very noble human urge. We all want to find meaning in our lives, and, you know, so much of happiness and good stuff comes from that as a byproduct from that. And you find meaning in your life by finding something bigger than you and then just, and then throwing yourself into that thing.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
That's sort of okay. Like, the human urge to transcend is important and worth honoring. But yes, of course, it can misfire, but it also misfires when we attribute it to money and success and fame, if we think those things are gonna make our lives transcendent or us happier, and again, they don't. There's lots of ways in which it misfires. But yeah, we can also attach it to these sorts of structures provided by conspiracy theories and so on. I have, over my years, read through quite a lot of sort of books on skepticism, so perhaps I've sort of just developed a kind of a way of thinking. But I, to me, the things that have sort of landed And stay with me. First, that Humean idea of strong claims demand strong evidence. So, you know, if somebody is making a positive claim about something that is unusual, that this thing exists, uh, whether it's something supernatural or... But they're saying that it's up to them to come up with evidence for it. It's not up to you to try and disprove it, because that's always gonna be a losing battle. So when people say, "Oh, this is true. This is what I believe, and you can't, you can't disbelieve it," well, no, you can't, and that's fine. You don't have to sort of rise to it. And I think a lot of the problem is once you start rising to it, and it gets into a sort of heated thing, you're arguing about stuff you don't need to be arguing about. I've had a million people over the years say to me, as someone that's often doing stuff that appears psychic and saying, "Look, this, this, this isn't psychic," say, "Well, how do you explain this? You know, this psychic said this thing to me," or, "How do you ex-" I... You know, a ghost that they saw or, uh, these experiences that people have. And, you know, particularly when it's ghosts of loved ones and so on, all these experiences, they're really meaningful to people, and I think there's probably all sorts of other things going on. I lived in a house for a few years that was damp and, and, like, d-damp's a funny thing. You know, it creates a real feeling of d- when it's just not quite enough that you can identify it as damp, but it's enough that it just does something in the air. It's a... It took a long time for us to work out it was damp, but it felt just like death. There was just something wrong. You know, that feeling of a room being wrong. There was vents that air would come in, and the dogs, the dogs would do that thing of barking at nothing, barking midair. Turned out it was smells coming up through vents. A friend of mine who works a lot in the sort of parapsychology world, Richard Wiseman, I don't know if you've come across him.
- TFTim Ferriss
He's been on the podcast.
- DBDerren Brown
I'm sure he ha- Yeah, he's a brilliant, hilarious man.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- DBDerren Brown
But he was talking about windows open at just the right amount of, or extractor fans and things, so you, you, you'll have air passing into a room at a particular frequency where-- And we all know about brown noise and white noise and things that can make parts of us vibrate, and it makes us feel a bit sick. Well, there's a particular frequency that will just make our eyeballs vibrate a bit, and what that means is we'll see shapes. We'll see, like, dark patches in the periphery of our vision. Now, you'd never know that. That's not somebody being stupid or gullible if they're seeing things like that. You know, that's a... So there's all, there's all sorts of stuff that goes on, but ultimately, for whatever, whatever is, you know, causing these things, these are powerful experiences for people, and I don't think it's... There's something wrong with leaping on them and saying, "That's wrong. That's stupid," because they really can mean a lot to people, um, particularly you said if you, if you've lost somebody and then feel that you're having some connection with them afterwards. So I think not rising to it and understanding these things as stories and experiences and what meaning that can have for a person. So I'm really ta- I guess I'm talking more about the sort of supernatural side of thing rather than conspiracies as such. But, but even, even I suppose with conspiracy theorists, these are things that mean s- they, they are giving this person something. I think there's a, a bit of space around that that can be sat with rather than immediately leaping on them. Otherwise, it's about the obvious things. Check your sources, you know, and is this government that on the one hand you're saying is totally ineffectual, are they also clever enough to have [chuckles] created this enormously elaborate thing that you're saying that they've done? But, you know, it's always, it's always gonna be with us, and it always, it points to that feeling of wonder and storytelling and how we latch onto a nice, neat story of cause and effect, and that's ex- that's exactly what I do for a, for a living. I, I see value in all that stuff, but it, yeah, it can misfire.
- TFTim Ferriss
Something I, I think about a lot, I fund a lot of early-stage science, and I'll just give people a couple of recommendations. Actually, this is, I think, pretty sure it's a fellow Brit, Ben Goldacre wrote a book called Bad Science-
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... which I think is, is worth, should be required reading for every school child on some level, at least parts of it.
- DBDerren Brown
Michael Shermer's written a lot in the area.
- TFTim Ferriss
All right, I'll check him out.
- DBDerren Brown
I think the best book I've seen on cold reading, and it might be very hard to get now, and it's a book written for magicians. I have a load of sort of old pamphlets and strange old books on these things, but there's one relatively modern, for me at least, so written in the last 20 years, called The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's a great title.
- DBDerren Brown
He may have written other books with The Full Facts Book of dot dot dot, but this is The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by Ian Rowland, R-O-W-L-A-N-D. And I remember that when I was learning all this stuff, that was definitely a kind of, that was a really useful... It was certainly up to date at the time compared to the very sort of, you know, strange old antique things, 'cause it's, it's such an old profession. It's, you know, probably the second oldest profession around. You know, it goes right back to the Oracle of Delphi, you know, giving people information that you seemingly couldn't know. So yeah, it's a very old literature
- 29:39 – 36:44
How learning magic influenced Derren’s skepticism and faith.
- DBDerren Brown
too.
- TFTim Ferriss
So I, I'm enjoying this conversation on a few levels, including a meta level, which is this conversation is going to be published directly before or directly after a musician who is devoutly religious. So we're gonna have a contrast of styles, as it were.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Is it true that you were Christian until reading The God Delusion? Is that a accurate statement?
- DBDerren Brown
Not quite. No, I was very much a Christian when I grew up. Didn't really have any Christian friends, apart from one or two, but I didn't have a Christian family or a Christian group. So it was relatively easy to sort of grow out of it, really.
- TFTim Ferriss
How did you end up an island of Christianity in the beginning?
- DBDerren Brown
How did I end up in it?
- TFTim Ferriss
No, an island of Christianity, meaning you didn't have Christian friends. You didn't grow up in a Christian family-
- DBDerren Brown
Oh, I see
- TFTim Ferriss
... but you yourself were Christian. How did that happen?
- DBDerren Brown
There was a teacher at my primary school, elementary school, who invited me to join her Bible class when I was five. I just didn't know any, any different, so I was inculcated quite young. And by the time I realized, "Oh, it's not everybody that believes this," it was, it was too late. And then I came out of it partly because I was doing magic and hypnosis and stuff at university, and getting such a strong, angry reaction from fellow Christians.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
I started to see, oh, okay, that's just sort of fear of something that's misunderstood. Okay, and I had them literally exorcizing demons from me during the show, you know, at the back of the room. It was extraordinary.
- TFTim Ferriss
Adds a little bit of extra flourish to the show. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
It, yeah, it, it added to the, to the drama. And then soon after that, I had a good friend who was a psychic healer and did tarot readings and so on, and I kind of, I was just looking at her, what to me struck me as a pretty circular belief system around it, and thinking, "I'm sure I'm doing the same. I must be just doing, doing the same with Christianity, but it's just a bit more-- well, it's less, less of a fringe thing, so it's a little harder just to laugh at." So I tried to give it, I tried to find some sort of intellectual, well, just some base for it other than just what could just be a circular belief system, and never did. And magic gives you a very-- it really drives a wedge into that thing of belief and skepticism. It always has been. It's always been the magicians that are exposing the psychics and the frauds-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- DBDerren Brown
... and, uh, and the strange belief systems.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, it gives you sort of the implicit, how could you explain this otherwise frame, I would have to imagine, right? Like, you're in a very similar to good scientists in the sense that you're, as a magician, sort of deconstructing phenomena to ask, "How did they do it? How could they do it? How might they have done it? How might you explain this?" Right? Which I, I imagine laypeople just don't do as often, but you're getting a lot of repetitions.
- DBDerren Brown
There's a terrific magician with the great name of Tommy Wonder. I don't think it's his real name.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
No longer with us, but he had this nice idea that the story of your trick gives you the highlights of the trick. In between the highlights, there will be the shadows, and the shadows is where you put your method. And what that means is that what you learn as a magician, and it's a very hard thing to decode this if you're not another magician, is you don't, you're not hiding your methods in secret moves and so on. A lot of what you're doing, you're doing very openly in plain sight, but you're, you're doing it in those little moments of relaxation that are out of the story that people are gonna follow-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... later. And it's a very hard thing, 'cause that's such a human thing to sort of follow those cues, that it doesn't matter if you're a scientist or what you are, you're still gonna do that. So you need the kind of familiarity with that. You need to instinctively watch and have the kind of emotional distance that allows you not to, not to fall for the same rhythm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
It took me a long time to realize this. We were doing a show on Broadway, I think, and it was, it was the first show I'd done that was a compilation of the best bits from previous shows. So it meant that when we wrote it, it didn't have a, um, it didn't have the same heart and through line as the other shows had, 'cause they, they're always written with that first.
- TFTim Ferriss
Didn't have an arc in the same way.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah, exactly. And it-- but it needed one, and I was sort of trying to work out what that was in real time during the show. And I, um, it struck me, especially 'cause magic's such a, it's such a childish thing, really. You know, you're just, it's the quickest, most fraudulent route to impressing people, isn't it? So it struck me that-
- TFTim Ferriss
There are a lot of those. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
... what happens with a magic trick is that you are seeing something happen that is showing you that your understanding of reality isn't right, that there's something you've missed, that your story, right, as you put those highlighted moments together and formed a narrative of what's happened, cannot be the full picture. Something else has, has gone on. It really stayed with me, because in amongst that childish, sort of really quite infantile world of magic, there was this thing that's like, well, that's a really useful thing in life. That's, you know, the nature of storytelling. We, we sit around these... When you tell a, tell a story, you, it's like the image of sitting over a campfire, right? So you're s- not over a campfire, it'd be uncomfortable, but across from a campfire from somebody.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- 36:44 – 39:21
Why did Derren wait until his 30s to come out?
- TFTim Ferriss
Let's talk about not necessarily shadow, but something you seemingly pushed away or excised for, or compartmentalized at least for a period of time. You already mentioned it twice. Coming out in your 30s.
- DBDerren Brown
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Could you describe if there was the moment, the conversation, the day, the realization that led you to then come out? Right, because there was not coming out, not coming out, then you came out. But presumably there was some type of catalyst for that. What happened?
- DBDerren Brown
I think the sort of lingering Christian thing didn't help. The one Christian friend that I had had got involved with that sort of gay conversion thing-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... which doesn't work terribly well. Um, although I didn't get very involved in that, it was sort of a, it was in the air because he was experiencing it. And I think it just sort of, it kind of lingered. And although I sort of didn't really, wasn't a believer anymore, it just kind of-- I don't know what it's like now for people. I'm sure it's very different. But you can sort of think it's gonna pass. There's a lot of that. You sort of don't really kind of own it. And it just got to the point where I thought, "This is just silly," and I'd just got into a relationship, and I thought, well, I was, I was known in the UK, and I thought, "I don't wanna be, don't want this to feel like it's some secretive thing unnecessarily." So, so I just sort of did. And, and of course, what you realize, whatever you come out about, whatever, whatever your thing is, how little people care. I mean, that's, that's the sh-- I expected, you know, the final scene of Dead Poets Society. I thought the, I walked out, [chuckles] walked out of my building the next day thinking I was gonna get a round of applause from people on the street. And of course, no, no one, no one cares. Of no interest to anybody. And I think the reason why it can be so liberating is not because you get to swing around with shopping bags in the street and live this flamboyant life.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
I think you just realize that these things aren't important. And if that isn't important, if the big thing you've carried around for so long and felt so much shame about isn't important, then all the other stuff certainly isn't. So I think that's why it's always good to, you know, when the time is right, to do those things.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
I told my mum, actually. I came out to my mum, and I think the next day she had a stalker of mine, a woman turn up on her doorstep saying that I was, I was her abusive husband. So it was a very confusing week for my mum.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Oh, jeez.
- 39:21 – 43:40
Finding meaning.
- DBDerren Brown
It was a lot.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's a rough week for Mom.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
You mentioned quite a while back finding something bigger than yourself in, there was a Guardian piece I read, this was just before you turned 50, that in the second half of life, it's important to find things that are bigger than yourself.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And finding meaning through losing yourself in those things. I'd like to ask about this because I know a number of, I won't mention them by name, some would be recognizable, but let's just call them sort of ultra skeptics, and it's hard to say this is causal, but they aren't necessarily the happiest people who seem to be the most fulfilled. [chuckles] And there are exceptions, of course. Now, you might say that came first, and then they found the skepticism. Who knows? So I'm not saying one causes the other. In any case, without religion, without that type of mooring, not saying it's necessary, but how have you found meaning? How have you found things bigger than yourself? What does that journey look like for you?
- DBDerren Brown
I think I've done the thing of looking for other structures. So I, I said I kind of drifted out of Christianity around university time, and I remember, so I was doing magic and hypnosis, but not really as a, didn't feel very full time. I was kind of a little bit drifting, but I was, uh, sort of learning enough to just sort of tick by. And I remember thinking, "I don't have any ambition here. I'm just enjoying this rhythm of life." So I'll, I remember quite consciously thinking, "I just wanna, I wanna be able to take a cross-section of my life at any point, and is everything in this moment sort of roughly in the right place? Can I, am I doing the things that, you know, am I getting up when I want to and not having to do things I don't want to?" And the things that felt important to me at, you know, 21. And if they're not, they'll be kind of easy to change. And that became a bit of a guiding principle. I've never had any, genuinely never had any ambition, didn't try and get a TV show or any-anything like that. I just, I've always just had that feeling of how are things feeling now? And this is long before, you know, talk of mindfulness or anything like that. So that's, that's been a sort of a guiding principle. And then years later, though, I wrote this book, Happy, which was largely about stoicism, and I realized as I was reading the Stoics that they were giving language to, or Seneca, I suppose I was reading first, was giving language to a big part of that experience. Although it's not, stoicism isn't, as you know, it's not really just about that, but that feeling that I had really resonated. And in the way we, we often find things inspiring 'cause they're articulating something clearly that we half feel but haven't really found language for. So I kind of found myself latching onto that, and I wrote Happy, and I, I wrote Happy over three years 'cause I was touring, and I like to write while I'm touring. So it split up over three years, and of course, it meant at the end of the three years, I had a different take on it. And then my feelings about, about stoicism have sort of changed over the years. But I think that, I think we often, you know, one, we just look, we look for another structure, don't we? So I'd left behind- The sort of Christian world as a structure, and I think that, I think it was appealing in the, hypnosis, NLP, all of those things, they give a certain kind of structure to experience as well. I think that's probably a part of it. And as I've grown up and got older, I think what I was trying to articulate there was that the first half of life, I think, is very much about having this sort of dialogue with the world in terms of the world is telling you what you need in order to move forward or have a reputation or be liked or whatever. You're kind of-- This axis of dialogue is very much with the world, and I think there's a, a natural shift in the second half that actually is about having that dialogue more internally. So I kind of, I'm fifty-three now, and I think there's, you know, I'm sort of aware of that happening, and my feelings of, you know, stoicism have shifted along with that too. But yes, I suppose that's it. Like we all do, we find a thing because the experience of something bigger than yourself is how we find
- 43:40 – 45:03
High status struggles.
- DBDerren Brown
meaning.
- TFTim Ferriss
What do you or what have you historically struggled with? Anything that pops to mind?
- DBDerren Brown
My mind immediately goes to the horror of dinner parties and high-status people, which of course I come across a lot because I'm known a bit here, and sometimes I get invited to things, and I'm not very good at that. I'm, I'm quite-- I guess I'm quite introverted, so unless somebody is, is really warm, I very quickly get into a thing of really not knowing what to say. Like, I found myself at the Clintons for Thanksgiving one year and, um-
- TFTim Ferriss
[chuckles] As one does.
- DBDerren Brown
I mean, it was incredibly, incredibly high status, and it's sort of... I mean, they were, they were wonderful and everything, but it was, it was, you know, kind of that sort of thing I find very difficult. I generally don't hang around other famous people here. I like the experience of people, you know, sometimes being on a bit of a pedestal, and it's different if you then meet them and they're not perhaps, they're a bit disappointing. It's hard to go back to their work and appreciate it in the same way, you know? So I-
- TFTim Ferriss
Heroes with clay feet situation, yeah.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah, yeah, totally.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
I think that, when you say, where do I struggle? I think that's what immediately comes to mind, is sort of awkward, difficult things with people of high, high
- 45:03 – 54:25
Making sense of the human experience.
- DBDerren Brown
status.
- TFTim Ferriss
Maybe this is a dead end, but I'll probe a little bit more. I'm curious also psychologically for yourself, when you are by yourself, does anything come to mind? And maybe this is me misreading, and if so, I'd love to know the origin. That's one piece, right? For yourself psychologically, is there anything that you struggle with or have struggled with? And then the follow-up to that would be why write these books? You know, Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine, A Book of Secrets: Finding Comfort in a Complex World, or doing the, the Audible Original, right, Boot Camp for Emotion, these types of things. Are those reflective of things that you have challenged, have found challenging in the past, or is that not the case?
- DBDerren Brown
I think since writing Happy, I have found the world of what it is to flourish really interesting. But I've never felt it in the way, in that very, forgive me, but that American optimistic goal-setting mode at all. I'm very much not about that. So that's meant that it's less simple, and it's the more interesting to sort of navigate and is then-- 'cause I, I enjoy writing so much, probably more than anything. I've naturally then, that's been the sort of stuff that I've taken into my stage shows and very much wanted to write about as I go along. So yes, I guess I am a kind of reflective type. Life's difficult. Life's, life, this, it has this centripetal quality. It brings us to these difficult central points. And when we're there, and it's interesting that the last show I did, Showman, was about this. We wrote the show, I don't want to spoil it for anybody that might see it, but, but it was certainly, it was pre-COVID, and I wanted to write the show with this thing that at the heart of it, that life brings us these, to these difficult centers. And when we're there, it feels lonely. We feel like we've failed, which is the big problem with the American optimistic goal-setting model that, you know, when things don't go well, you're supposed to, I guess you have to blame yourself 'cause you didn't set your goals well enough or believe in yourself well enough or whatever that strange Protestant work ethic, uh, applied to life tells us we should feel. But the reality is that lonely, difficult central point is exactly the human experience. It's 'cause we're all brought to those points. It's what we all-
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... share, and the thing that makes us feel most isolated is the one thing that actually connects us the most.
- TFTim Ferriss
Huh, that's very beautiful.
- DBDerren Brown
And interestingly, we'd sort of written this show, and then lockdown happened, and it just played out. The very thing that was physically isolating us was the one thing we were all, we were all sharing. And that, I think, is eternally valuable to me. And it's the thing that, and I know is also the, the answer to finding, you know, dinner parties with high-status people difficult [chuckles] is that they're, they're the same. They're probably hating as much of it as I am. You know, that we're all having these awkward experiences most of the time, and you shouldn't compare your insides to other people's outsides because, you know, they're very different things. I find that a helpful thought. One of the issues with stoicism for me, I suppose, is that it's, it's another way of life being a bit of a fight. The thing I love most about it, actually reading Marcus Aurelius, he talks so much about retreating, and I love that. I love there's this very sort of introverted aspect to reading Marcus that you don't get so much from the, the teachers from Seneca and Epictetus that are very much telling you what to do. All of it, I do love it all, but there is a bit of a constant fight at the heart of it. The im-images, the metaphors are, they're either military or they are, you know, you're a, a rock with a- waves lashing against you, and you've got to be solid in the face of all this. You know, and you are setting yourself up for a world that's not gonna live up to your standards. And I don't know. I don't know. Is that, is that the way to live? There's a German sociologist called Hartmut Rosa who's got a terrific book. It's a, it's not an easy read. It's a beast of a thing, called Resonance. And have you come across this? Have you come across Resonance?
- TFTim Ferriss
I've heard the title. I haven't read it.
- DBDerren Brown
It's a very different look at what might make a successful life. And rather than being about virtue and so on, it's about a mode of relating to the, to the world where it's a level, I suppose a type of engagement. It's not, it's not an emotional state. It's not about feeling anything in particular, but it's just about... He talks about, well, what it isn't and how most of us live is we treat the world as a resource, right? So y- y- imagine if two, two artists and it's an art competition. You-- They're told to go out and paint the best picture they can, and one of them goes home and does the best he can do and provides his picture, and the other one thinks, "Okay, all right, well, I want to do the best picture, so I better get a... Well, first of all, I need a really good studio space." So he finds a great studio space, and, "Now I need the best possible easel and, okay, a proper good linen canvas." And he sources that, and now he's gonna g- go get the best paints and the best brushes, the finest brushes, a- and so on, and so on. And then, you know, time's up.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
And this is what we're doing. Generally, we're treating the world as a resource. But what's happened is that, that the resources that are a means to an end, right? So we're trying to be richer and more attractive and more this and more that. Those are only means to an end, so they got a bit confused with the goals-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- DBDerren Brown
... somewhere along the lines. And he's suggesting a sort of a rather more... He talks about like, um, a tuning fork. Like, you know-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... you've got one tuning fork next to another one, and the other one starts to vibrate.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- DBDerren Brown
And it's just a different sort of relationship of resonance with the world as opposed to treating it as a resource and a number of other things that we, that we do. And I rather like that, and it's-- And I, I don't think it's incompatible with stoicism at all. And the part of stoicism I like the most, and I think that initially drew me to it, is that life is difficult. You know, and you've got your, here's your X-axis and your Y-axis, and on the one axis, you've got all the things you want to achieve, your aims and your plans, and then the other axis is stuff that life is throwing back at you, what they used to call fortune, and we don't really talk about that anymore, which is a shame. But, and, and we, we're told if you set your goals and believe in yourself correctly, that you can crank this line of life up so it's in line with this X-axis, in line with your goals and your aims. But the reality is we live this, uh, an X equals Y diagonal. It's sort of a meandering line, and sometimes we're on top, and sometimes we're not. You know, we'll have a great day, and then life will throw something horrible our way, and it's, it's that. So how do you make your peace with this? And that image of that X equals Y line is something that resonates throughout history. Schopenhauer spoke about it. Uh, Freud, he wasn't trying to make... That first talking therapy was never about making people happy. He was, his goal was to, how did he put it? Restore a natural unhappiness.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
That life is basically gonna be unhappy a lot of the time, and you don't want to be overly unhappy, but it's just how you make your peace with the fact that life's always gonna be a bit dissatisfying. You're always gonna get caught between these, between these poles. Michael Csikszentmihalyi, I'm sure you know, who wrote Flow.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. Sure.
- DBDerren Brown
Again, you're caught between anxiety and boredom and the, the, the f- the flow state between your, your, whether your skills or your challenges are gonna win out. This, this same idea is so helpful, and that's the stuff I love because I think that's, A, it's a real antidote to the fetishizing of optimism and so on. I've been around faith healers a lot, and the thing that really struck me watch-- And by faith healers I mean the kind of the Christian evangelical type that are getting people up out of wheelchairs and so on. And I've done it. I've done this-
- TFTim Ferriss
I recommend everybody watch Miracle, by the way.
- DBDerren Brown
Nice stage show. Thank you. Yes, I, that was a fascinating show to do.
- TFTim Ferriss
I really enjoyed that.
- DBDerren Brown
Thank you. Thank you. It was amazing to do every night. I was doing it, but for a room of non-believers, it was quite a-- Didn't know if it was gonna work at all. But watching the, um, the people out there doing it, a recurring idea is that you throw your pills away, you know, you, you don't need your medicine, and if the disease comes back, it's 'cause you didn't have enough faith, which is this perfect formula for absolving yourself of any responsibility as the person-
- TFTim Ferriss
As the healer
- DBDerren Brown
... as the healer, and putting all the blame on the, uh, on the person going through it. And there's any number of horror stories, of course, of people that get caught up in that. So, and it's exactly the same. You know, you read something like The Secret, I suppose, but she's, Ro- is it Rodaburn, Rondaburn, is telling us quite specifically, you know, you send your wishes out into the universe, and if it doesn't provide, it's because you didn't, you didn't commit to it enough. You didn't commit enough to that, to that belief. You know, it's not the fault of the system. It's your fault for not committing to it. And I think it trickles down into goal setting and all the rest of it. So I, I like this idea of, you know, life's difficult, and we all share that experience no matter where we are and, and what we're doing in our own way. And actually, how do you, how do you sit comfortably and hopefully resonantly with a life that doesn't, isn't always gonna give you what you want?
- 54:25 – 1:00:25
Ambition and productivity.
- TFTim Ferriss
All right. So I would like to come back to this word ambition. If somebody looks at your website, if I look at your Wikipedia page, I may describe you or be inclined to say, "This is an am- ambitious man," [laughs] given the corpus of work, right? You have-
- DBDerren Brown
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... six or seven books. You have the Broadway shows, the theater, the one-man shows, the television, the collaborations. It goes on and on and on. So What I would love to know is how you define ambition, because maybe we're-- I don't wanna end up arguing about God where we have different definitions of God, for instance, right?
- DBDerren Brown
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
So maybe it's just in the way that you define or think about ambition. But it strikes me that you are very active, right? And you mentioned painting a moment ago. People should go to your website just to see your painting as well.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
We may come back to that if we have time. How do you explain your productivity? Because if you were just sitting in your room trying to be receptive to the universe delivering you [chuckles] signals, you may just end up sitting in your room, right? So there is some proactivity involved, it would seem, in what you're doing. How do you explain the level of productivity? What contributes to that, if not ambition?
- DBDerren Brown
It certainly isn't ambition. And by ambition, I mean I've never sought out something ahead in the timeline that I think would be good for me or productive or expand my reach or, uh, uh... Those things really send shivers through me. But I have a manager, and I have co-producers and grown-ups, essentially, who do think about those things. And as time's gone on, I have an equal-- Well, I, I guess I'm-- What I choose to do has become up to me, which is nice. And, you know, I won't be blind to the, if something, you know, like, yes, it's a, a good thing to do a, a show in New York, of course. But really, I'm thinking it would be very lovely to live out there for a bit, and what an amazing experience that would be. But I don't, I wasn't seeing it as a, a step to anything else. It just felt like, well, that would be, that would be an enjoyable thing to do. And the projects all take a long time. And, and so there is a lot that's come out of it, but they're all kind of-- I'm not running around frantically from one thing to another. They're things that just take a chunk of time, and then normally it's, I'm just sort of obliged [chuckles] one way or another to get onto the next one because a year before I said I'd do it. And somewhere people have been making arrangements, and teams have been assembled, and I can't at the last minute go, "I just wanna, I just wanna sit at home."
- TFTim Ferriss
[chuckles]
- DBDerren Brown
But I have had a time of sitting at home the last year or so 'cause I got a bit burnt out with it. And I'm very aware that I am really not my best if I'm not creatively engaged with something. So painting is very helpful for me because I can just do that. That's like a week or two of just in a studio painting, and that's, that's lovely.
- TFTim Ferriss
Is that how long it takes you to do one of your pieces, a week or two?
- DBDerren Brown
A coup- Yeah, a coup- Well, often, sometimes a bit longer 'cause I don't get to give it the time I want.
- TFTim Ferriss
Strikes me as very fast. People should, need to go to your website. Everybody go to the website. We'll-
- DBDerren Brown
Go to the website
- TFTim Ferriss
... put some links in the show notes as well, but derrenbrown.co.uk. When you look at the artwork, I mean, this, this could be another career for you. [chuckles] It is that-
- DBDerren Brown
Thank you
- TFTim Ferriss
... developed. Very, very, very impressed.
- DBDerren Brown
Thank you.
- TFTim Ferriss
I grew up in a family of artists and wanted-
- DBDerren Brown
Oh
- TFTim Ferriss
... to be a comic book penciler for fifteen years myself, so I-
- DBDerren Brown
Oh, wow
- TFTim Ferriss
... paid for some of my college expenses being an illustrator, and like I cannot even come close to doing ten percent of what you do with the portraits that you do. There's no way.
- DBDerren Brown
Oh, you're very kind. Well, I, I really, really very much enjoy it. It's a nice way of, yeah, shutting yourself away and just throwing yourself into something for a big chunk of time, which I find helpful. So I think that's, that's probably part of it. But I, I really feel it's mainly due to the other people I have around me who are more savvy with it.
- TFTim Ferriss
So what it sounds like, which is I've never discussed with someone, is that you have-- It's not that you live in a life devoid of ambition, but you have a, you have freed yourself from the need to be ambitious yourself, which is part and parcel of maybe side effects that come with it, by having team members who are ambitious on your behalf in the sense of thinking about how certain options will create or open other doors and so on. Is that a fair description?
- DBDerren Brown
I think that is a fair description. I think if there's a recipe for success, it's talent plus energy. So you, you know, you-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- DBDerren Brown
... develop your talent because if you've got no talent... A- and your energy is, you know, how you get it out into the world. And if you've got all the energy of self-promotion but no talent to back it up, it's not gonna be very helpful.
- TFTim Ferriss
[chuckles]
- DBDerren Brown
And if you've got all the talent in the world but no energy of getting it out there for people to see, that's also not great. I have certainly never had any, [chuckles] any energy with it at all. So having a manager and people like that to do that side of it. And very early on, I realized I, I needed that. So I genuinely am not saying it with any overweening false modesty or anything. I just, my principle, and even more so now that I'm older, is what, what would be enjoyable in and of itself? I forget his name, but there's a philosopher who talks about the importance of this in, in midlife, are these atelic activities, the things that just bring pleasure in and of themselves and aren't constantly about, you know, the, the payoff at some point in the future. I think as we get older, those things are more important. But I've always had that, and maybe I've just never really had a, a proper job, and it's sort of easier to-
- 1:00:25 – 1:07:48
The counterintuitive assembly of Derren’s creative projects.
- DBDerren Brown
I'm touring next year in twenty twenty-five with a, a new show, and like all these things we-- And we've got a title. It's called Only Human. Tickets are on sale. People are buy- And I have no idea what the show is yet. We haven't written a word of it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I love that.
- DBDerren Brown
And I've kind of got used to this over the years. So, you know, we're starting to kind of think about that now, and-
- TFTim Ferriss
[chuckles] If you don't know what the content is, how did you choose the name?
- DBDerren Brown
How do you choose a title?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- DBDerren Brown
And a poster and everything. I know. We've sort of got used to it now 'cause this is the eleventh show that I've done. And as soon as we say, "Okay, let's do a show next year," my manager's saying, "Right, well, the brochures will need, you know, the-" theater brochures programs will need an image and a title at least
- TFTim Ferriss
It's basic descriptions. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah, exactly.
- TFTim Ferriss
Or not even a description. They need an image and a name at the very least.
- DBDerren Brown
But it's, it's a great example of, you know, how you give yourself a structure and then think within, [laughs] and then think within that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- DBDerren Brown
So all the, all the show titles have kind of been a bit generic, and then we found ways of, of making them work well enough.
- TFTim Ferriss
A show of mystery and suspense, right? I mean, you've, you have a lot of room, wiggle room with-
- DBDerren Brown
Totally. It is a bit like that. But given that they're always something about the human experience-
- TFTim Ferriss
And is it typically this way that you book it, and then with the positive constraints-
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... you figure it out? How did you choose, in this particular case, Only Human? And this was going to be related to my next question is, is how do you pick the next project, right? But, but let's get specific on the Only Human. How did you pick this? Sounds like you've done this more than once, knowing that you will have to figure it out later.
- DBDerren Brown
It's absolute necessity. In the same way that you've booked the theaters, you have to come up with a show, and likewise, if you need a title for the brochures, we have to come up with the title. So Andrew and I just had an email exchange back and forth going, "Okay," and we send a bunch of things, and, "Well, it's gonna be something about being human because I just know that'll be the heart of it somewhere." And within a few email back and forth, no one found that one, no one found Only Human offensive or too, too this or too that or... So we, we went with it.
- TFTim Ferriss
You don't seem to mind offensive. Are you steering away from controversial and offensive now? [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
Oh, true. No. Well, yeah. But it's also about not being too specific. You know, that's the trouble with a, with an offensive, bold title is that you're then, you're then gonna be probably tied-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Gets too specific. That's the issue, right? [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
That's the issue. And then, yeah, in terms of choosing the projects, well, I mean, it's really, it's what I, what I would like to do.
- TFTim Ferriss
I wanna know how you know that though, right? Because I, for instance, I'll, I'll buy, I'll buy a little time. So my friend Kevin Kelly, he's founding editor of Wired Magazine. He tries to give away all of his ideas. And then if, if, if one idea keeps coming back to him and no one will do it, and he can't seem to get rid of it, and he's... it's floating around in his head, then that's how he chooses a lot of his projects, at least the new exploratory projects.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
In my case, you know, nonfiction books, let's just say it's a book I can't find myself. I wanna learn about it. I immerse myself, so it's sort of a graduate degree for myself.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And there's, there's a bit more that goes into it. I test it with my audience using blog posts and podcasts and things.
- DBDerren Brown
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
But you were saying you want to do, and this might sound like such a silly question, but how do you know that, right? Because there's some people who describe a feeling or maybe they're kept up at night, but it's an excitement. It's not an anxiety.
- 1:07:48 – 1:14:53
Ensuring ethics and safety in TV social experiments.
- TFTim Ferriss
using forms of suggestion as self-defense. So I do want to hear a story about that. But before we get to it, since you mentioned the push and I promised at the very beginning I would touch on the ethics piece. So for people who have watched some of these or do a little homework, one might think as a viewer, knowing that you're putting people through this process where unbeknownst to them, ultimately they're being groomed and conditioned and set up to do something very extreme, that people would end up with all sorts of complex PTSD and that the show itself could produce all sorts of capital T trauma for people involved. How do you respond to people?
- DBDerren Brown
And?
- TFTim Ferriss
How do you respond to people with this concern?
- DBDerren Brown
What's your point? Well, for example, take Sacrifice then, which was the last one. That show, somebody's going through a really like rollercoaster series of things to get to a life and death situation where they think they're going to be shot at the end of it and so on. So the first thing is when we write the show and I'm writing these shows with a, we are writing the show, but a lot of experience of making similar things. I've got very used to making sure this person is going to be just held in a place that is, that they're okay and they're going to be sort of safe in themselves. That's like the first layer in the actual writing of the show. And at any point, bear in mind, if it's a big hidden camera thing, I can just, I could just step in. If anything bad happened, I could simply step in. And also everything gets passed by, this is important, an independent psychological team. So we'll have a psychologist on board who knows the show, knows exactly what's going to happen, all the things that might potentially be triggering. You know, so if someone's lost someone dear to them in a car crash, we're not going to want them witnessing a car crash, for example. So that might not be obvious, might not know that. So everybody that applies or gets shortlisted will have this session with a psychologist that they'll think everybody gets, but it may only be three or four people that get it by this point. But if we don't want them to know they've been shortlisted, then they don't. We're also preserving this fiction for them as to what's going on. But we'll have that too. And then during the show itself, again, we've got that psychologist. We have other independent people that are with us in the truck watching it play out any number of measures where if anything is going a bit off track or they see genuinely some line has been crossed, we can step in. And I'll, if I get the chance, it depends on what the show is. But if I've been able to interact with the people before, then I can layer in language and triggers which I can give to the actors, particularly if I'm talking to them through earpieces, to use which I know will have an effect on the person that's going through it to calm them or give them some resources. So I'm kind of using the hypnosis in a way that's for that benefit to come back at a later point rather than me making them do stuff. So that's all. Things like that are in place. Next, they go through the experience and they've always, and I've done this so much now, always loved it and taken a huge amount from it. No one's ever like actually had a bad time or come out of it. However it looks or feels like to the crew making the show, the other actors actually have often a far worse time because they're making, you know, they're feeling terrible putting somebody through something. Whereas the guy or the girl that's been through it has always loved it. And then, so going back to Sacrifice, Phil does this whole thing, comes out the other end of the show. But there's actually the trickier part then is, well, how do you now deal with this person who's been through a hopefully life-changing or at least pivotal big thing in their lives? And then now it's now going to be a TV show that's out there. That's weird and that's a sensitive thing. So I flew Phil over and he came and he watched the show in my house. We watched it three times. Once, because he needs to see it first as a show with like music, underscoring, close-ups, bits that were taken out that didn't make it to the final cut that might have meant a huge amount to him and now he's got to get his head around. That's not part of the story because they didn't really serve a purpose at the end of the day. There's a bit in the show where he doesn't do something. Like there's a bit that, and it's a bit like, ah, he's not doing it. Is this going to work? And he had to then get his head around he'd let us down or that he'd failed. And that's a difficult thing. That's a real thing for him. We watched it a second time with the other people that had done similar shows that I'd made. So the guy from the Apocalypse one with the zombies and the guy from The Push. And they came. So now he felt like he had a little group of people that had been through a similar thing and shows because he was a fan of the show. So these are people that he knew. So that was a really helpful thing for him. And finally, bizarrely, we watched it. Do you know Martin Freeman, the actor? Have you come across him?
- TFTim Ferriss
The name rings a bell, but I can't conjure a face.
- DBDerren Brown
Famously Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock, and all sorts of things. He's certainly a big name here. And Phil was a big fan of him. Also big star in the Fargo series
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh yeah, of course, of course. I just pulled up his photo. I know who Martin Freeman is.
- DBDerren Brown
You got it. So we watched the show with Martin. For that was the third time, so Phil could sort of, you know, hopefully feel proud of it. And by this time, after three viewings, had got used to it as a TV show. But then you've got what about when the show airs, and it's a controversial subject, so he might have a lot of backlash from people. And I remember the, the first show he did that was at all like this, and when this was a bit of a learning curve for us, this guy that's been through this extraordinary journey that meant so much to him, he's so excited the show's going out, and this is back in the day when it's just broadcast and everyone's gonna watch it at the same time. So he's got Twitter open on his phone, and he- he's just reading the nastiest things about himself. His girlfriend's too pretty for him. He should get his eyebrows sorted out. It was just awful [laughs] awful stuff.
- TFTim Ferriss
Wow.
- DBDerren Brown
And it was really miserable for him. So then we got somebody out there to be with Phil in the States so they could be around during that time, which would be sensitive and weird that it suddenly goes out in the public domain. So it's a long answer, but basically there's a huge amount that we do that doesn't really form part of the drama of the show you're watching 'cause it's, you know, it's a whole different-
- TFTim Ferriss
It's in the background
- DBDerren Brown
... story that has to preserve the fiction. What you're seeing is absolutely the guy's experience, but all this other stuff has to happen to make sure that it's safe and does the job it's supposed to do. It, it's there for one reason, which is to, you know, give him a real proper, you know, hopefully important pivotal moment.
- TFTim Ferriss
You have a hell
- 1:14:53 – 1:20:01
Suggestion as self-defense.
- TFTim Ferriss
of a job, sir. [laughs] All right. As promised, suggestion as self-defense?
- DBDerren Brown
Oh, that's right. That came up at, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
What does this mean?
- DBDerren Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
You must have a story.
- DBDerren Brown
It's worth knowing this, actually, 'cause I think, I think we should all have this ready in our head. So I had spoken after, after doing hypnosis shows, I would sometimes do a Q&A afterwards, and people would ask about whether you can hypnotize people without them knowing it, and so on. And I'd sort of... It had always occurred to me that, you know, if you wanna keep the, the seat next to you free on a train, you know, you don't, don't put your bag there 'cause that's what everybody does, and it's just annoying, and then you wanna ask the person to move their bag. Instead, pat the seat and nod and smile at people.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
No- no one's, no one's gonna sit next to you, right? So I'd sort of s- spoken about this kind of stuff, and then I found myself in a, a sort of a, a real-life situation, and I was walking from one magic convention to another, and I was-- This was before the TV or anything. I was sort of mid, mid-20s. I was in a velvet three-piece purple suit with a fob watch chain and long hair, and I mean, if anyone was gonna get brutally [laughs] murdered that night, it was me. And this very drunk, angry guy and his girlfriend are walking towards me. Just look, he's, this guy's just looking for a fight. And because I'd sort of spoken about how to, you know, these slightly off-kilter ways of dealing with these sorts of situations, the trick is to act in a way that it makes complete sense, but it's utterly out of context, so the other person thinks they've missed something. So, you know, 'cause if somebody comes up to you in the street and says, "It's not 20 minutes past 5:00," your reaction wouldn't be to go, "Yeah, I know. It's whatever. You're gonna what? I'm sorry?" You know, you're like, "You've missed something."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
So he comes up to me, "What the fuck are you looking at? You, do you wanna fight?" Or whatever it was he was saying. And I said to him, "The wall outside my house isn't four foot high." And he-- And what you get, and I guess it's a similar thing in martial arts of that adrenaline dump. He was like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- DBDerren Brown
... he asked me to repeat, first of all, what I'd said. So I said the w- "It's not four foot high." I lived in Spain for a bit. The walls were much higher, but if you look at them here, they're tiny. They're nothing. And he, he sort of did this, he just went, "Fuck!" And he's, he just essentially, he kind of not exactly collapsed, but he just sat. He went, "Ugh," and he sat down on the pavement. His girlfriend walked off. I had planned, in my mind, what I was gonna do was-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, girlfriend made the right choice.
- DBDerren Brown
She made the right choice.
- TFTim Ferriss
She's like, "I don't wanna deal with either of these people." [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
My plan was, which I didn't get to, my plan was you, to then give, you give the person relief from the confusion, and this is where the sort of the hypnotic element comes in. I was gonna say to him, "It's okay. It doesn't matter whether your left or your right foot is released first, but you'll s- you'll be fine within a couple of minutes. You can walk, and you can move and everything, and it's, it's fine. It doesn't matter if it takes a couple of minutes." So that, that was the plan, right? To leave him stuck to the pavement.
- TFTim Ferriss
To the pavement. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
But I didn't get to go that far. And I ended up weirdly sitting down with him and saying, "So what happened? What happened tonight?" And his girlfriend had, she'd got in a fight, and she'd bottled somebody, I think. It was something like that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, Jesus. Birds of a feather. Yeah. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah. So he went off. I, I then walked off to this other magic convention, told everybody. I was so excited. No one believed me 'cause they thought it was just me making stuff up. But the, uh, if there's a takeaway there, it's, you know, have, have, have a song lyric or just something to... It came out of a conversation with a friend who used to walk home from his art studio late at night, and there was always gang, just like intimidating gangs standing around. So he'd always, he'd always like cross over, and sometimes they'd shout things, and it was just horrible. So I said, "Why don't you cross over to their side and, you know, say, 'Good evening,' as you walk past?" And, you know, and he did, and he never had any trouble 'cause they just thought he was strange.
- TFTim Ferriss
Insane. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
So have something like that. If someone's running at you with a knife, you know, it's not gonna help. But if you, if you're in that situation where people are being intimidating, it's a, it's a very, I think, a, a powerful route. It has to make sense, but just be out of, out of context, and just commit to it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Could you elaborate on the making sense, right? 'Cause you could be like, "Ah, boogity boo dinosaurs times two.
- DBDerren Brown
No, no, that's not the same. They need to feel they've missed something.
- TFTim Ferriss
Missed something.
- DBDerren Brown
So I, I had that phrase in my head that the wall outside my house isn't four foot high because I, because I'd spoken about this sort of thing-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... with audiences after the show. So I, I had sort of without meaning to kind of rehearsed it, and so it just kind of came out. So I think having, having something like that, for some reason the, the negative in it really, it really helps [laughs] 'cause it's like-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
... they've said something that you're responding to-
- 1:20:01 – 1:24:01
Why Derren takes care not to abuse his superpowers in real life.
- TFTim Ferriss
What are some benevolent applications of the techniques that you have acquired, right? What are some off-stage applications? This would be an example, right? This would be a problem-solving example. Where else can you apply these things?
- DBDerren Brown
I really weirdly don't use it in real life. Now that stoic lesson of not trying to control things that are out of your control, that, it's so the opposite of what my, of what this strange job is that I have. So I actually very much don't. I mean, the thing, I think the thing I'm most aware of, which is not a new thing for anybody to hear, but in my mind ties in with the same sort of world, is just the importance of being heard and how that... So, you know, your partner, spouse, girlfriend, whatever comes home and has had a frustrating day and, you know, kind of just wants to offload. And particularly for some reason if you're a guy, let alone if you're, uh, if you're sort of vaguely stoically drawn. But our natural thing is of course to, you know, to offer solutions and so on, and it's, you're just doing the thing again of not letting the person be heard. And it's so obvious, and I think I really don't walk around in that Derren Brown mode, but I catch myself consciously just trying to be, you know, be present and hear and listen and know that it's... 'Cause you know the moment you start offering solutions, they're, they're dismissed. There's a million reasons why that, why that isn't appropriate, you know? So you, you very quickly get told if you do get it wrong. But I think that's a big-- And it goes back to this thing of people's stories of ghosts and psychics that told them amazing things. Just, just to be present with those things and not feel that it's your job to step in and kind of, you know, morally correct them or in some way put them on a different path or even offer a, a solution to a puzzle. That sometimes we just need to sort of sit in these things and be heard because what we're actually saying is something deeper than the specific problem or the thing that's niggling us. So I don't really carry a lot of it around. When I, when I'm in work mode, I'm full of that stuff. I mean, it's the power of presupposition is I use it all the time in card tricks. You know, you, you say you've got a deck of cards at the beginning. They're in a special order, so you can't have the person shuffle them. But maybe there's a point halfway through the trick where they can shuffle the cards. So at that point I'd give them the cards to shuffle and I'd say, "Oh, shuffle them again, but this time do it under the table."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
So now they're taking the cards under the table and somehow in doing that they've accepted the word again and they're shuffling. And, and later when they describe the trick and they want the trick to sound as amazing as possible because they've been fooled by it and don't want to look stupid, the amount of times they would say, "Well, I shuffled the deck at the beginning."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
And they didn't, and then the trick really is impossible 'cause they couldn't have shuffled it at the start. So the power of presupposition is, is really, you know, is very, uh, important. And I guess those is, you can apply that to yourself I guess in your inner language as much as trying to influence others. But I, I just somehow don't sit in that world in real life. I think it's enough in life to try and find a way of gathering yourself afresh and then going out in the world and taking some responsibility for, you know, amidst your mess. I think that's enough. I, I don't think self-esteem is that important and I certainly don't think in-influencing others is that important. I think we, you know, we got enough, we got enough to be getting on with.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
So weirdly leaves me... It didn't, when I first started I loved all that stuff and now it leaves me a little bit cold. I don't, I don't think it's about, it's about that. I think just, you know, how you make, how you make peace with life that's not always gonna go your way. That's the project.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- DBDerren Brown
That's a successful life.
- TFTim Ferriss
That is the project.
- 1:24:01 – 1:28:27
Recommended reading.
- TFTim Ferriss
You read a lot. You've written a lot. Are there any books in particular, and you can name at least two, so one could be of, of your own. But are there any books that you have gifted or recommended frequently to other people that come to mind?
- DBDerren Brown
I'm a big fan of Jonathan Haidt.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
Who if you haven't had on this podcast you, you should.
- TFTim Ferriss
I have. He's outstanding.
- DBDerren Brown
Wonderful, brilliant guy. I've just finished his book, The Anxious Generation, which is his last one. I'll often find myself giving those to people. I really like, I like James Hollis as well a lot.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- DBDerren Brown
I don't know if you've had him on. He's a-
- TFTim Ferriss
No
- DBDerren Brown
... Jungian psychotherapist, or psychoanalyst I suppose, who writes a lot in that mode. Irvin Yalom.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm. Don't know that name.
- DBDerren Brown
He's a wonderful writer and, and does that thing that O-Oliver Sacks I think started of writing little a-accounts of, um, interesting cases.
- TFTim Ferriss
Ah, case studies.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah. He's a beautiful writer. Of course, the moment we finish this I'll think of any number of-
- TFTim Ferriss
Here's a cute, do you read fiction?
- DBDerren Brown
I don't and it's, it's missing. I think I should and there's probably a lot more truth to be found in reading fiction than in, you know, just the nonfiction that I do. But I'm always drawn to it and I always feel because there's always a book project somewhere in my mind I always feel like I should be. But as I become more aware of that thought I sort of feel like I can now work against it and, uh, and read more fiction.
- TFTim Ferriss
If you were to read fiction, what type of fiction might you start with? Are there any kind of parameters or characteristics?
- DBDerren Brown
Driven by that thing of I should always be doing the thing that isn't easy, I think it would be the only fiction I'd read more of that, so Dostoevsky and so on. It would be that. It would be the, the big, heavy classics-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- DBDerren Brown
... 'cause that's where I feel that's where you should start. I've occasionally been given a novel by a friend, and I always find them very sort of, uh, forgetful. So-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
... I like, I think probably the big, the big European works 'cause then I feel I was-
- TFTim Ferriss
So you want to learn how to ski, so get dropped out of a helicopter at the top of K2, that type of approach.
- DBDerren Brown
I loved the, um, the Thomas Harris, the Hannibal Lecter-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... series of books. I remember absolutely devouring those. And I was a big fan of Stephen King when, I don't know what any of this says about me, when I was, when I was younger. So I've definitely had-
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-huh
- DBDerren Brown
... had that. And if, if he brought out another one in the Hannibal series, I would certainly read that.
- TFTim Ferriss
You might go for it. All right. You know, since you like difficult, I'll, I'll just make one recommendation for-
- DBDerren Brown
Uh-huh
- 1:28:27 – 1:30:34
TED Talks in treacherous terrain.
- TFTim Ferriss
in retrospect. If you had to give another TED Talk, but it had to be on something you are not known for. So it can't be, it can't be the, the magic, anything tangential to magic. Also, I'm gonna take art off the table. Sadly, I'm gonna take art off the table.
- DBDerren Brown
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
What might you give a TED Talk on?
- DBDerren Brown
I think this idea that we're all joined up by how lonely it feels when things go wrong. That this thing I said of life pulling us towards-
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... difficult places. I don't say that because I've had a particularly difficult life, but I just think it's, it is just part of life. It's, and it's part of life, part of someone's life that's going well. It's still, it's still a common thread. And I think, I think that is not the mode that we're encouraged to live in.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- DBDerren Brown
It was very strange when I did that TED Talk, and I really enjoyed it, but it was-- I don't say this with a-any disrespect to the TED people at all. They were wonderful. But it was in Vancouver, and you step out of that TED building into some of the worst homelessness in the-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... in the world.
- TFTim Ferriss
In North America, yeah.
- DBDerren Brown
It is like Disney have staged the apocalypse. There was, I mean, there was a bride covered in blood pushing a trolley through, you know, fire. There were just, you know, things on fire. I mean, it was extraordinary. Not quite on its doorstep, but like t- a 10, 15 minutes walk. And it was very odd going out and finding a coffee in the middle of all that and then going back to, going back to the sort of TED Talk topics. It was a, it was a strange thing. So maybe partly for that reason. But I think the difficulty of life and how, how, how we sit well with that, I think that's, that's the perennial subject for me.
- TFTim Ferriss
Maybe we should make that happen. Yeah, Vancouver, I presented at TED any number of years ago. I can't remember.
- DBDerren Brown
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And some of the worst opiate and opioid addiction in North America, for sure-
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... in terms of density. Gabor Maté has done a lot of work there. All right, shifting topics a little bit or completely. That's, I'm gonna make a hard left turn.
- 1:30:34 – 1:34:20
A new belief or habit that has improved Derren’s life.
- TFTim Ferriss
In the last handful of years, five years, I mean, somewhat of an arbitrary timeframe, but what new belief or behavior or habit would you say, it doesn't have to be the most, has improved your life the most, but are there any new beliefs, behaviors, habits that have meaningfully improved your life? Ways of looking at the world? Could be anything.
- DBDerren Brown
Hmm. I think being confident to go with my instincts on particularly work-related things. Historically, so these are big projects. I have these other people around me that are putting things together behind the scenes in terms of productions and meetings and pitching ideas and so on. And, and I get caught up with that, and that, as I said, that productivity that you see isn't driven by any sort of workaholic tendencies on my part. It's just what I find myself swept up in. So of late, and it's an odd thing to be saying, "No, I don't wanna do this," or being offered some private gig out somewhere and go, "I'm not gonna enjoy that."
- TFTim Ferriss
Unless it's the Clintons, then you can't say no.
- DBDerren Brown
Unless it's the Clintons. [laughs] I've been in a, my current relationship for sort of 10 years, and probably the last five years of that it's settled better with me in terms of... Because we're very different, so I am, I think I'm naturally disposed to a kind of a, quite a stoic, placid thing. He's, he's very, um, very fiery. I'm sort of quite enjoying the sort of learning from that, 'cause it makes, it makes me a bit less of a people pleaser, I suppose. We've had lots of work done in the house for a long time, and he's very happy to start arguments with the people that are doing that, and I'm just trying to keep everybody happy and m- making them coffee and trying to iron over any tension. And I actually, sometimes a bit of conflict is, is important. Because it isn't really about conflict, is it? It's about being able to have some faith in what you actually are and want to say and-
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh-huh
- DBDerren Brown
... stand for. It's not about conflict. We, you think it's about conflict, so you don't do it, but it-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- DBDerren Brown
... it's not. It's just about having some faith in yourself.
- TFTim Ferriss
What caused that settling? Was it relating to it differently, that dynamic that you just described? So you have 10 years, like in the last five you've settled into it in a different way.
- DBDerren Brown
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
What has contributed to that?
- DBDerren Brown
I think just time. I think it's just slowly, um-
- TFTim Ferriss
Fatigue
- DBDerren Brown
... slow process of-
- TFTim Ferriss
Just kidding. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
... breaking down. Giving up. Slow, slow surrender. My natural predisposition is kind of mental space. Wanna be on my own. I've always sort of saw myself as probably being on my own with a dog, and even getting a second dog as a couple, having now a second dog, it felt, oh, no, no, it's wrong. It should be, should be... I remember saying, "Oh, let's not get a second one. I like that it's just me and my dog."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- DBDerren Brown
And my partner said, "What do you mean you? It, it's us and our... What do you mean? What are you talking about?" And I realized that was my, my image of myself was still kind of a bit single. That's definitely a new mode for me. I am trying to work a little less, but I'm v- also become very aware. When I, when I wrote the happy book, afterwards I was going out and giving talks on happiness to promote the book a little bit, and because it, it was just, I had all this knowledge that I found really interesting, and I wanted to do something with it and not just end it 'cause I'd finished writing the book. And I was really unhappy. I was going out thinking, "I'm, I'm actually feeling a bit miserable, and I don't know why, and I feel a bit of a hypocrite." And I realized it was because I'd finished writing the book, and I hadn't, didn't have that engagement in a, as I said, in a big creative project. So those are important to me, and I think realizing that as well. I think best we can, best we can hope for is become more conscious of the things that really we do find meaning, the things that we do need, and having more of those.
- 1:34:20 – 1:36:17
Derren’s billboard and parting thoughts.
- TFTim Ferriss
If you could put a message, quote, image, anything non-commercial on a billboard, meaning make it present for millions or billions of people-
- DBDerren Brown
There's a line or a verse of Rilke, the German romantic poet, which is something like, "Experience everything, the beauty and the terror. No feeling is final. Just keep going." Always thought that was great.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, Rilke. Yeah.
- DBDerren Brown
Love a drop of Rilke. So yeah, maybe that. Or just if you want something snappier, I think gather yourself afresh. I, I think if, for us all just to find ways of being able to, to do that. What we need in our life just to kind of get ourselves back together and step back out into the world. Having that and knowing what you need, that's a big tick, isn't it?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. Well, Derren, I could keep going, but I wanna be respectful of your time, and this has been a great wide-ranging conversation. People can find you on Instagram, Tw-
- DBDerren Brown
My AirPods are starting to run out. They're starting to-
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, yeah. [laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
You keep dipping out, so.
- TFTim Ferriss
So people can find you on social @derrenbrown. We'll link to everything on Instagram and on X. Derren Brown, D-E-R-R-E-N brown.co.uk. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we wind to a close? Requests of my audience, things you'd like to point them to, anything at all?
- DBDerren Brown
Just to recommend our hairdresser that we, uh, that we both share.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- DBDerren Brown
Uh, give him a shout-out.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yes, we do share the same stylist and beard trimmer. [laughs] Looks good on you.
- DBDerren Brown
You too. It was very good to finally make, make contact. Thank you so much for, thank you for having me.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. And for everybody listening, we'll link to everything in the show notes, tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, be just a little kinder than is necessary to others and also to yourself. Thanks for tuning in.
Episode duration: 1:36:28
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